MINNEAPOLIS--Dale Wakasugi, a high school basketball referee, collapsed with cardiac arrest in the middle of a girls’ high school basketball game between Rosemount and Blaine Friday night. The first time he suffered cardiac arrest during a game was in December 2007. In the first instance, people responded quickly with CPR and an automated external defibrillator (AED) and shocked his heart.
Surgeons then inserted an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) inside his chest to prevent sudden death in the event SCA should occur again. On Friday night, he collapsed in full cardiac arrest and the internal device shocked his heart back into a normal rhythm, saving his life.
Wakasugi, a member of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation’s National SCA Survivor Network, says he feels extremely lucky to be alive. Dale's Story.
Source: KSTP 5 Eyewitness News